Robert Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

She was gorgeous. When she undulated down a corridor, boys followed in swarms.

She started to learn farming from Greg but Mum put stop to that. While she was big and smart and willing, our farm is mostly a male operation--and Greg and Hans were not only male members of our family distracted; she cost more farming man-hours than her industry equaled. So Wyoh went back to housework, then Sidris took her into beauty shop as helper.

Prof played ponies with two accounts, betting one by Mike's "leading apprentice" system, other by his own "scientific" system. By July '75 he admitted that he knew nothing about horses and went solely to Mike's system, increasing bets and spreading them among many bookies. His winnings paid Party's expenses while Mike built swindle that financed catapult. But Prof lost interest in a sure thing and merely placed bets as Mike designated. He stopped reading pony journals--sad, something dies when an old horseplayer quits.

Ludmilla had a girl which they say is lucky in a first and which delighted me--every family needs a girl baby. Wyoh surprised our women by being expert in midwifery--and surprised them again that she knew nothing about baby care. Our two oldest sons found marriages at last and Teddy, thirteen, was opted out. Greg hired two lads from neighbor farms and, after six months of working and eating with us, both were opted in--not rushing things, we had known them and their families for years. It restored balance we had lacked since Ludmilla's opting and put stop to snide remarks from mothers of bachelors who had not found marriages---not that Mum wasn't capable of snubbing anyone she did not consider up to Davis standards.

Wyoh recruited Sidris; Sidris started own cell by recruiting her other assistant and Bon Ton Beaute Shoppe became hotbed of subversion. We started using our smallest kids for deliveries and other jobs a child can do--they can stake out or trail a person through corridors better than an adult, and are not suspected. Sidris grabbed this notion and expanded it through women recruited in beauty parlor.

Soon she had so many kids on tap that we could keep all of Alvarez's spies under surveillance. With Mike able to listen at any phone and a child spotting it whenever a spy left home or place of work or wherever--with enough kids on call so that one could phone while another held down a new stakeout--we could keep a spy under tight observation and keep him from seeing anything we didn't want him to see. Shortly we were getting reports spies phoned in without waiting for Zebra File; it did a sod no good to phone from a taproom instead of home; with Baker Street Irregulars on job Mike was listening before he finished punching number.

These kids located Alvarez's deputy spy boss in L-City. We knew he had one because these finks did not report to Alvarez by phone, nor did it seem possible that Alvarez could have recruited them as none of them worked in Complex and Alvarez came inside Luna City only when an Earthside vip was so important as to rate a bodyguard commanded by Alvarez in person.

His deputy turned out to be two people--an old lag who ran a candy, news, and bookie counter in Old Dome and his son who was on civil service in Complex. Son carried reports in, so Mike had not been able to hear them.

We let them alone. But from then on we had fink field reports half a day sooner than Alvarez. This advantage--all due to kids as young as five or six--saved lives of seven comrades. All glory to Baker Street Irregulars!

Don't remember who named them but think it was Mike--I was merely a Sherlock Homes fan whereas he really did think he was Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft... nor would I swear he was not; "reality" is a slippery notion. Kids did not call themselves that; they had their own play gangs with own names. Nor were they burdened with secrets which could endanger them; Sidris left it to mothers to explain why they were being asked to do these jobs save that they were never to be told real reason. Kids will do anything mysterious and fun; look how many of their games are based on outsmarting.

Bon Ton salon was a clearinghouse of gossip--women get news faster than Daily Lunatic. I encouraged Wyoh to report to Mike each night, not try to thin gossip down to what seemed significant because was no telling what might be significant once Mike got through associating it with a million other facts.

Beauty parlor was also place to start rumors. Party had grown slowly at first, then rapidly as powers-of-three began to be felt and also because Peace Dragoons were nastier than older bodyguard. As numbers increased we shifted to high speed on agitprop, black-propaganda rumors, open subversion, provocateur activities, and sabotage. Finn Nielsen handled agitprop when it was simpler as well as dangerous job of continuing to front for and put cover-up activity into older, spyridden underground. But now a large chunk of agitprop and related work was given to Sidris.

Much involved distributing handbills and such. No subversive literature was ever in her shop, nor our home, nor that hotel room; distribution was done by kids, too young to read.

Sidris was also working a full day bending hair and such. About time she began to have too much to do I happened one evening to make walk-about on Causeway with Sidris on my arm when I caught sight of a familiar face and figure--skinny little girl, all angles, carrot-red hair. She was possibly twelve, at stage when a fem shoots up just before blossoming out into rounded softness. I knew her but could not say why or when or where.

I said, "Psst, doll baby. Eyeball young fem ahead. Orange hair, no cushions."

Sidris looked her over. "Darling, I knew you were eccentric. But she's still a boy."

"Damp it. Who?"

"Bog knows. Shall I sprag her?"

Suddenly I remembered like video coming on. And wished Wyoh were with me-but Wyoh and I were never together in public. This skinny redhead had been at meeting where Shorty was killed. She sat on floor against wall down front and listened with wide-eyed seriousness and applauded fiercely. Then I had seen her at end in free trajectory--curled into ball in air and had hit a yellow jacket in knees, he whose jaw I broke a moment later.

Wyoh and I were alive and free because this kid moved fast in a crisis. "No, don't speak to her," I told Sidris. "But I want to keep her in sight. Wish we had one of your Irregulars here. Damn."

"Drop off and phone Wyoh, you'll have one in five minutes," my wife said.

I did. Then Sidris and I strolled, looking in shopwindows and moving slowly, as quarry was window-shopping. In seven or eight minutes a small boy came toward us, stopped and said, "Hello, Auntie Mabell. Hi, Uncle Joe."

Sidris took his hand. "Hi, Tony. How's your mother, dear?"

"Just fine." He added in a whisper, "I'm Jock."

"Sorry." Sidris said quietly to me, "Stay on her," and took Jock into a tuck shop.

She came out and joined me. Jock followed her licking a lollipop. "'Bye, Auntie Mabel! Thanks!" He danced away, rotating, wound up by that little redhead, stood and stared into a display, solemnly sucking his sweet. Sidris and I went home.

A report was waiting. "She went into Cradle Roll Creche and hasn't come out. Do we stay on it?"

"A bit yet," I told Wyoh, and asked if she remembered this kid. She did, but had no idea who she might be. "You could ask Finn."

"Can do better." I called Mike.

Yes, Cradle Roll Creche had a phone and Mike would listen. Took him twenty minutes to pick up enough to give analysis--many young voices and at such ages almost sexless. But presently he told me, "Man, I hear three voices that could match the age and physical type you described. However, two answer to names which I assume to be masculine. The third answers when anyone says 'Hazel'--which an older female voice does repeatedly. She seems to be Hazel's boss."